Chapter Twelve

"Well!" Eb exclaimed. "It's been an age since I've heard from you. How've you been?"

"Better," Cal said heavily. "Listen, I know it's none of my business. But where are you sending Amelia?"

There was a brief pause. "That's not your concern," he said quietly.

Eb was like himself, there were limits to how far you could go with him, even in conversation.

"She won't talk to me," Cal said.

"I'm not surprised."

"Did she tell you what she did six years ago?" Cal asked, irritated at the other man's tone.

"Before or after she got out of the hospital?" Eb asked.

"Why would they take her to the hospital to get rid of a baby?" he asked, all at sea.

Now there was a pregnant pause. "She didn't tell you?"

"I...didn't give her much of a chance to speak. I was angry and hurt. I said a lot of things. She blocked my number so I couldn't call her again."

"Your wife did."

"I didn't know that, until Amelia told me, today. My wife and I didn't speak often. She was usually too high to notice whether I was around or not," he added bitterly.

"I see." Eb was stunned.

"Amelia said she'd been in the hospital. I thought there were clinics for that sort of thing."

"Her great-aunt pushed her down the staircase," Eb interrupted. "That was why she was in the hospital," Eb said. "That was what happened to the baby, too. Amelia isn't the sort of person who goes to a clinic. How can you say you know her, but you don't know that about her?" he added.

"Her great-aunt...what?"

"Pushed her down the staircase. She said Amelia had disgraced the family."

"Surely, that wouldn't have been enough to provoke such a response," Cal said, accustomed to such incidents from years of listening to tragedies in his job.

"It would if Amelia had refused to get rid of the child, Cal. I imagine that's why. And that's not all. She lost her job, her home, her baby. She had no money and no place to go. That's why she came to me."

Cal's eyes closed. He'd made assumptions. He'd been certain that Amelia didn't want his child. He hadn't checked on her after the passion they'd shared. He'd even taken Edie to the funeral as armor. He'd done every damned thing in the world to show Amelia how little he cared. And there she was, pregnant, her grandfather dead, no place to live except with her prejudiced great-aunt. Afterward, she lost the baby and Cal told her that he was married, that he blamed her, that she could go to hell...

Amelia, with the world shattered at her feet, so desperate that she signed on with a bunch of mercs and went to war because she had nothing left. Nothing. Nobody. Least of all, a man who cared about her. He felt the sting of moisture in his eyes.

"Then your wife called her, and she probably had a few things to say about how you felt, if you told her the story you thought was the truth." Eb added his own measure of salt to the wound.

"I didn't know that Edie had done that," he said on a heavy breath. "Even when she was sober, she was the kind of person who enjoyed rubbing salt in open wounds," Cal added bitterly.

"So Amelia lost everything and she had nothing left to lose. So she came to me and asked for work. I didn't have the heart to refuse her."

Cal's heart was breaking. After what he'd done to Amelia, it was no wonder that she wouldn't speak to him. He'd accused her with no evidence except a snarky phone call from her great-aunt, and he knew Valeria was a fanatic about the family name. Why hadn't he tried harder to talk to Amelia? Why had he hesitated? Because, to his shame, he'd believed Valeria. He was never going to get over the pain of doing that. He'd have to live with it for the rest of his life, along with the nightmares that never ceased.

"Cal?"

"What? Oh. Sorry. I was just...thinking. Eb, if you can, please don't send her someplace where she's likely to be killed. I have no right to interfere with her life, but I can't..." He stopped, just before his voice broke with emotion. He collected himself. "It's my fault. All of it. What happened. I don't want her to run away from me and into something she can't handle."

"You could go and talk to her."

"I followed her all over San Antonio, trying to do that. She listened to me and smiled and just kept walking."

"She's very bitter about what happened. I think your wife has a lot to answer for. And Amelia's great-aunt, as well."

"They were accessories. I was the devil in the mix. It's so funny, how you can go looking for something your whole life, only to realize that you had it under your nose, and you threw it away."

"Life's like that."

"Life sucks."

Eb chuckled. "Yes. Sometimes. You should get married and have kids."

"No chance of that. Not anymore. Take care of my girl, will you?"

"I've always done that. Come out and see us sometime. The facility's expanded. We're teaching all sorts of new stuff, including computer hacking. In fact, I think we have a couple of card-carrying Feds here checking us out undercover."

"I might do that one day. Thanks for the information. I won't mention where I got it."

"Good thing. She can still outshoot me."

"Take care."

"Sure. You, too."

After a few minutes, during which he relived every bitter word he'd said to Amelia, every stupid thing he'd done to her, Cal got up from the table, poured out his coffee, grabbed a tea glass and filled it to the brim with rum. He opened the refrigerator to look for ice. His cell phone dropped but he didn't see it. He closed the door and opened the freezer unit on top. He opened the ice tray and added one ice cube to his drink. Then he sat back down at the table.

This was a stupid thing to do, his brain told him. Shut up, said his aching heart.

Two days later, one of his officers came looking for him. Lt. Rick Marquez was a favorite of the captain's. It was Rick who usually got sent to talk him down when he drowned his problems. It had only been a couple of times. The last one had been bad. The captain had happened upon a bank robbery and stepped out of his car with his pistol drawn right into the path of one of the robbers pointing a loaded shotgun at him. He fired and threw the shotgun up. The criminal died. The captain stayed drunk for days.

Clancey Banks, who was the closest thing to a relative he had—he'd more or less adopted her little brother and her years ago when she'd been his secretary—got him to the phone. But he was totally incoherent except to say that he was sick of life.

Which spooked her, and she called his office and told them they'd better get somebody out to Cal's ranch, pronto. She would have gone, but the new baby had a cold and she wasn't leaving him.

Word got around, just in the department, that the captain was on a bender. Nobody was brave enough to wander out to his ranch and try to talk him down this time until Marquez volunteered.

It became obvious very soon that intervention was going to become a job. The front door of Cal's ranch house was unlocked. When nobody answered several knocks, Rick walked in. The captain was lying facedown on the living room floor. Snoring. Yep, he thought. It was going to be a job. If not a career.

Rick got the captain as far as the sofa—he was a big guy and dead weight. He left the unconscious man long enough to find a blanket in the bedroom that he brought to cover his superior with. Then he went into the kitchen and made coffee.

"I don't want any more of this!" Cal raged, red eyes blazing as he finished the third cup that Rick had almost forced down his throat.

"I don't blame you. What the hell kind of coffee is this, anyway?" he added, sniffing it.

"Vanilla. I think. The wrong kind. I bought it and thought I'd take it back and exchange it for Colombian, but I never did." He made a face. "It tastes like a pastry."

"I think it's supposed to."

The captain drew in a long breath and sat back on the sofa. It all came rushing into his head, now that he was sober—halfway at least. Amelia. The staircase. The baby. The concussion. Edie. The rushed marriage. The nightmares. It all conglomerated in his head like Jell-O in a fridge.

He bent over, with his hands on his knees propping up his throbbing head. "I was happier drunk," he muttered.

"Everybody is happier drunk, but it would be a terrible scandal if they had to fire you for it, sir," Rick pointed out.

Cal sighed. "Yeah."

Rick had no idea what had set the captain off, but other officers had mentioned seeing the captain following a blond woman around town. The woman wouldn't listen to him. There had to be a history there, but it was obviously something personal and Rick didn't like to pry.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked finally, his tone concerned.

Cal took a deep breath. "Yes. Get me a priest."

Rick gaped at him. "Sir, suicide is a very bad way to handle personal problems...!"

He glared at his subordinate. "I don't want to commit suicide! I want to talk to Father Eduardo Perez. He's at the Catedral de Santa Maria. I think his number's on my cell phone. If I can find my cell phone..." he mumbled, still not quite sober.

"I'll look for it," Rick said, and got to his feet. "When did you see it last?"

"I was pouring a drink and looking for an ice cube," the older man mumbled.

Rick finally found the missing phone after searching through every drawer in the room. After the conventional places, he looked in the unconventional ones. The phone was in the refrigerator. He took it out. Fortunately, it warmed up quickly and there was a dial tone. He just shook his head.

He carried it back into the living room. Cal still hadn't stirred. "It was, uh, in the fridge?"

Cal looked up, deadpan. "Don't you keep yours in the fridge, Lieutenant?" he asked blandly. "Does a hell of a job keeping them from overheating."

Rick smothered a laugh.

Cal didn't. He chuckled out loud as he took it from Rick. "I went to get an ice cube for my drink. I looked in the fridge for it." He looked up at Rick. "No comments," he said firmly.

"Sir, I swear, I never meant to say a word," Rick assured him. "Where you keep your phone is nobody's business."

"Yeah? Well, I'd better not hear any gossip about it when I'm back in the office tomorrow."

"You won't, sir. I can guarantee it," Rick said with a carefully placid expression.

"Good enough. Go home, Marquez. I'm all right now." He hesitated. "And...thanks."

"No problem, sir. Glad to help."

Cal waited until Rick's car started up. Then he dialed. A deep voice answered. "Can you come over for a few minutes?" he asked. "I think I really need to talk to somebody."

There was a deep chuckle. "Ten minutes."

Father Eduardo was something of a legend in San Antonio. He lived and worked in a section of San Antonio that had belonged to the Little Devil Wolves gang—mostly teenagers, responsible for some of the bloodiest murders in the history of the city. When Father Eduardo had first become rector of the parish, seven heavily armed members of the gang decided to get rid of him.

The guns weren't enough to save them. After calling an ambulance for the most injured two, the priest went with the rest of them to the hospital and waited patiently while they were treated. Two of them converted on the spot. The rest left him strictly alone—especially when they discovered that he was best friends with the leader of the rival, and more deadly, gang, Los Serpientes. Over a period of months, the Little Devil Wolves had been prosecuted into oblivion, and good riddance. The Serpientes, while still deadly, were kindness itself to children and the elderly. So was Father Eduardo.

Eduardo had been with Cal and Eb and the others in the African conflict. All of them were scarred from the experience. When Cal was really down and tormented by memories, Eduardo was the man he called for help.

"This time it isn't Ngawa, is it, compadre?" Eduardo asked over yet more cups of the detested vanilla coffee.

Cal shook his head. "I was infatuated with a girl I knew in Jacobsville when I got home from Ngawa. Things happened. She lost her grandfather and her home and had to move in with a great-aunt in Victoria." He took a deep breath. "She was pregnant. Her great-aunt pushed her down a staircase. She lost the baby."

"I am truly sorry," Eduardo said. He scowled. "She wanted it?"

He nodded. He drew in a breath. "I was told that she went to a clinic. Her great-aunt phoned me to say that. Then my late wife also called her to thank her for getting rid of an encumbrance." He looked up. "So helpful, both of them. I hated Amelia for what I thought she did. I called her and cussed her out, without giving her even a chance to explain. Then, a few days ago, Eb told me what really happened." He drew a breath and winced. "Amelia's great-aunt pushed her down the staircase. She lost the baby, got a concussion and was in the hospital. Lost her job. She'd already lost her grandfather." He shook his head. "And I just found out what Amelia has been doing for a living for the past few years. She's working for Eb Scott." He lowered his head and sipped coffee to hide the anguish he felt. "She won't even talk to me."

"I assume you said something to her all those years ago?" Eduardo probed.

He drew in a breath. "Some terrible things," he replied. "Plus, I got married at once, to show her how little I cared." He looked at Eduardo. "You know how that worked out. Living with Edie was hell on earth. Not that I didn't deserve that, and more, considering what I did to Amelia's life."

"So that is the past," Eduardo replied. "What about the future?"

He grimaced. "Eb's sending her on some mission overseas. He won't tell me what."

"I can only imagine where," Eduardo replied.

"Exactly." He looked up. "I can't live if she gets herself killed. She's all I've thought about for years. Even when I blamed her, when I thought she didn't want the baby, I couldn't stop caring." He looked away. "I detested my wife. I couldn't touch her."

Eduardo didn't reply. He'd once been married, before he took the collar, and lost his wife and child in a horrible way. He'd never thought of having women since then.

"I remember what she was like."

"I was very drunk when I married her." He looked up. "I don't drink, usually."

"I know that, too."

He finished his coffee. "I don't know what to do. She won't listen."

"You could pick her up for jaywalking."

Cal gave him a speaking look.

"Flowers? Candy? A mariachi band?"

"She'd throw away the flowers, stomp on the candy and probably shoot the mariachis," Cal said gloomily.

"Then take her dancing at Fernando's," Eduardo said gently, smiling.

"Optimist."

"I believe in miracles. I see them every day."

"That's your business. You deal in miracles. I deal in the lowest common denominator of humanity, crime."

"If you never expect miracles, you never see them," Eduardo continued gently. "First, you must believe."

He met the priest's warm dark eyes. There was such kindness there, such compassion. He felt his doubts slowly melt. He smiled. "Okay," he said. "I'll try."

"And that is the first step," Eduardo replied. "Now, I have a question."

"Of course. What is it?"

"Where in the world did you buy this truly detestable coffee?" Eduardo asked, making a face at the coffee cup.

Amelia was sitting all alone in her apartment, sipping black coffee and waiting for Eb to send over a man with details of her new assignment. Phones could be hacked. It was better to do it in person.

Her mind kept going back six years. She'd been young and in love for the first, and last, time. And life had tortured her. Everything that could possibly go wrong in her life, had. She missed her grandfather terribly. Valeria was the only relative she had left. Despite the woman's apologies, Amelia wanted nothing to do with her. The loss of her child was a torment. Cal had thrown her away like a used napkin. But she hadn't been able to stop loving him, even then. She'd wanted her baby.

She sipped coffee and thought of the lonely, bitter years in front of her. If she caught a bullet on this assignment, who cared?

The knock at the door startled her. Finally, she thought, the messenger.

She opened the door. "No," she bit off. "He wouldn't have sent you...!"

Cal edged his way inside, gently but firmly, and closed the door behind him. "We have to talk. You know that."

She glared at him. "There's no need. We're not the same people we were six years ago. I don't look back. Ever."

"That was me, six years ago," he said. His black eyes searched her pale ones. "I threw you aside and walked away. I need you to understand why."

"We won't see each other again," she emphasized. "I'm not coming back after this assignment. Not to Texas."

He looked worn. "I smell coffee."

She hesitated. "All right. But I'm expecting someone."

His heart fell. Another man. Why hadn't he expected that? She was young and she had an allure that had nothing to do with physical assets. She was a nurturing person. They were rare in Cal's life.

He followed her into the kitchen. "Father Eduardo and I had to drink vanilla coffee. I bought the wrong kind and didn't return it."

She glanced at him. "Vanilla?"

He made a face. "Yes."

"I'd rather drink muddy water," she said simply. She poured him a cup of hot black coffee and handed it to him as he sat down at her kitchen table.

She warmed her own cup and sat down with him. It was going to be an ordeal, but maybe he was right. Maybe they had to talk it out before he could let go of the past.

"Six years ago," he began, "you wouldn't have been able to understand what I'm going to tell you." He leaned back on her sofa with his coffee. "In fact, I wouldn't have told you six years ago. You were so incredibly innocent. About men. About life."

She frowned. She didn't understand.

He saw that. He laughed hollowly. "Ngawa was a nightmare, even for the more experienced mercs." He took a sip of coffee. "We had this kid that we sort of adopted in our unit. We had plans to bring him to the states after the mission was through." He drew in a long breath, hating the image that popped in 3D, in full color, into his mind. "His name was Juba. One day we moved into an enemy position. There was a house. In the doorway, an explosive. Juba ran ahead of us to check it out, with his AK-47 shouldered. They shot the explosive while he was taking cover." He shivered. "Have you ever seen a man blown up, Amelia?" he asked quietly.

She hesitated. Nodded. She swallowed down the nausea. "I set a charge a few minutes too soon. A man died." Her eyes closed. "I've had to live with it, and with the survivors who were his friends. None of us can forget it."

He was shocked. He hadn't yet connected her expertise in demolition with her actual job for Eb. "You do demolition work for Eb," he said suddenly, and fear carved a cold place in his heart.

"Yes," she replied. Her eyes were cold as they met his. "I'm good at it now."

He sipped coffee. He had to talk her out of going overseas. He didn't know how. "Cy Parks sat with Juba in his arms and rocked him until he died," he continued quietly. "It was just the beginning of the horror. I saw things, participated in things, that I wish I could forget. Sometimes the memories get really bad, and I drink." He sat up, putting his empty cup on the coffee table. "Marquez, who works in my office, just came over to talk me down. This is the first time I've been completely sober in several days."

"The memories..." she began.

"I didn't know your great-aunt pushed you down a damned staircase," he said, his black eyes flashing. "I didn't know that Edie had called you."

The information sat on her like a hundred bricks. She just looked at him, her eyes wide.

"I stayed away from you after that night because I knew I wouldn't be able to stop if we were together again," he bit off. "It was why I took Edie to your grandfather's funeral. I wanted you all the time." He looked up at her. "Besides that, I was trying to deal with the aftermath of what happened to us in Ngawa, and I wasn't able to cope with it. I couldn't tell you about it because you wouldn't have understood. Not like you can now," he added.

She took a breath. "I've had my own feet in the fire," she said quietly. "I know what it's like. Well, sort of. Eb always has me behind the lines doing demo work."

God bless Eb, he thought fervently.

"So you can understand some of what I was going through. I was an emotional train wreck," he continued. "I had to deal with the memories, get back into the world. That meant going back to police work and moving to San Antonio. Edie was always around. I didn't encourage her. My mind was on you most of the time, but guilt and mental anguish kept me away. I had no idea about the baby..." He bit off the rest and his eyes were on the carpet.

She felt his misery. It was a devastating blow, to realize that what she'd been hating him for was the result of outside interference from two hateful women.

"I thought that, because you stayed away, you didn't want anything else to do with me," she said quietly. "But I was going to keep my baby. I wanted him so much! I left the pregnancy kit in the bathroom, I was so shocked by the results, and Valeria found it. She insisted on a termination, but I told her I wouldn't do that. I told her I'd move out, I already even had a job..." She stopped. Her eyes closed on the memory. "She pushed me. I came to in the hospital. The concussion was the least of my sorrow."

"And then I called you and cussed you out, after all that." He stopped, fighting for control. He felt sick to his soul.

She saw the anguish in his face. It seemed so strange, to be sitting here with Cal after all they'd been through, to realize how much he still cared. He'd wanted the child. He'd wanted her. Only now could she understand what he'd been going through six years ago, the terror, the confusion, probably some guilt into the mix.

"At least you had someone to help you through all the trauma," she said.

"If you mean Edie," he said heavily, "her only purpose was to avenge you."

"Excuse me?"

"Rubbing salt into open wounds?" he replied, lifting his head. "She made my life hell. I couldn't touch her. She was physically repulsive to me, and she knew it, but only after she'd coaxed me in a drunken haze to marry her. After that, it was men and booze and drugs for the rest of her life. When she died, it was a relief for both of us. Hell on earth, Amelia," he added softly.

She gaped at him. "Couldn't...touch...her," she stammered.

"She wasn't you," he said simply. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a jeweler's box. He put it on the coffee table and opened it. It was a wedding set of diamond rings. Amber diamonds.

He stared at her. "I bought those six years ago," he said quietly. "Hid them in my travel kit. I was going back to get you. I'd planned to call you the day Valeria called me."

It was too much. Just too much. She started crying. Sobbing. If it hadn't been for Valeria...!

She felt arms around her, holding her, arms that were still familiar after all the years between.

"Don't cry," he whispered at her ear. "Don't. It's over. We found each other again."

Her arms tightened around his neck. "Damn her!" she sobbed. "And damn Edie!"

"And damn me, too, but we can't go back and change a thing. We can only go forward, Amelia." His hands were caressing on her back, slow and tender, like the voice at her temple. He drew in a long, shuddering breath. "I would give an arm to take back what I said to you, what I did. It was my fault, more than anyone's. I refused to listen. If I'd just kept my damned temper...!" He groaned out loud and held her closer. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm so...sorry!"

She felt a wetness at her throat where his face was buried. Tears stung her own eyes. Six long years of agony because of two miserable people who liked to cause trouble. "Me, too," she choked.

He just held her, rocking her, in a silence that finally calmed them both.

He lifted his head and searched her dark eyes with his. "We can't go back," he said sadly. "But we can go forward. We can start over. Just you and me, Amelia, the way we were meant to start over six years ago. And this time, there won't be any interference."

Her face nestled into his throat, and she snuggled close as he lifted her and sat back down with her in his lap. His arms tightened and he sighed with pure delight. He hadn't expected this reaction from her. Not even in his dreams.

"I love you, Amelia," he whispered huskily. "I think I loved you the first time I saw you. But I only knew it when it was too late."

She nuzzled closer. "I loved you, too. It was why I would never have given up my baby."

"I should have known that."

She stilled. "How did you know, about how I lost the baby?"

"Eb told me." He sighed. "I've been drunk for three days. Marquez came this morning and shoved that disgusting vanilla coffee into me to sober me up. I hated being sober. I relived what happened all over again. I was going to buy a new bottle of rum. But I thought maybe I could get you to listen to me if I just came over and stood at your door until you let me in."

She laughed softly. "I didn't mean to."

He kissed her hair. "I know you didn't. Father Eduardo told me just a few hours ago that miracles happen when you expect them. So I expected this one. I'll have to phone him and tell him it worked."

She lifted her head. "Father Eduardo? The priest who faced down seven armed attackers and sent them all to the emergency room, empty-handed?"

"The very one," he said, smiling.

"He's something of a legend in San Antonio."

"He was a legend in Ngawa, as well."

She drew in a long breath and wiped her eyes on a paper towel from her pocket. He caught her hand and kissed it.

"We can get a license at city hall," he suggested. "I already have the rings. We can buy you a really pretty dress. Then we can have a honeymoon. Afterward we can go to Fernando's every Friday night and do the tango!"

She laughed. "I haven't danced in years."

"Dancing is something you never forget how to do. Along with something else that we did very well together," he said, bending to kiss her very gently. "But this time, we wait until after the wedding," he added firmly. His eyes searched hers. "That is, if you'll marry me."

She searched his eyes and saw the years of anguish, of hopeless, helpless love that she'd seen in her mirror for the same length of time.

"Take a chance on me," he said quietly. "Believe in miracles."

She took a long breath. He was absolutely gorgeous. The ice inside her that had kept her going for so long was slowly melting under the warmth of his hunger for her. And not just physical hunger. The love in his eyes was like brown velvet.

But he was tense, waiting. Hoping. Not pressuring. She saw all that, in a flash. Her own love had never wavered, even when she thought he hated her. It never would.

She smiled, finally, and wrinkled her nose at him. "Okay."

"Thank God," he ground out, and bent and kissed her, tentatively at first, and then with such hunger and passion that she moaned aloud.

A long time later, he lifted his head. He took deep breaths. "First, we get married," he said tightly. "We do it right, this time."

She smiled dreamily and reached up to kiss him softly. "Yes." She laid her head on his chest with a sigh.

"And you stop carrying a gun," he added in a teasing tone.

"I will if you will."

"I'm a law enforcement officer. I'm required to carry a gun," he said smugly.

She lifted her head and started to speak.

"Show me your concealed-carry permit," he challenged.

"It's in my wallet."

"Is it?" he purred. "You can't watch it every minute."

"I what?"

He gave her a blithe smile. "One of my officers ate the license of a man who verbally abused him during a traffic stop in town," he pointed out.

She began to see the light. "You wouldn't dare," she exclaimed, reading between the lines, her eyes like saucers.

"I can arrest people, too," he pointed out.

She gaped at him.

"I have handcuffs," he added.

He just stared at her. Until they both burst out laughing.

"You're going to be a lot of trouble," she said.

He nodded and smiled. "Count on it."